574 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Under these conditions in these and other States 5,700,000 farmers 

 are now working land either as owners or tenants, the only limit in 

 recent years to a further expansion of crops having been the lack of 

 farm laborers. At the present time (July 9th) farm laborers are in 

 most urgent demand to harvest the great crop of wheat, without any 

 sutficient supply. 



During the last decade there has been in these States a small 

 lessening in the average area of the farm, coupled with a moderate 

 increase in the number of tenants. The owners have increased faster 

 than the agricultural population, and the greater increase in the num- 

 ber of tenants has been recruited from former farm laborers or 

 from emigrants. Landlordism in the sense of ownership of very large 

 areas to be worked permanently by tenants, covers a very small part 

 of this whole area. It is inconsistent with the whole spirit of the 

 people and will never assume any great importance. 



In the new States, such as Minnesota and the Dakotas, it is still 

 possible to buy cheap land from the railroad, from large timber com- 

 panies and from the State and general government, and to repeat the 

 old process of a poor man acquiring a good farm free from debt in 

 from three to ten years by the aid of a small mortgage loan or the credit 

 of the land companies. In the older settled communities, with land 

 worth on an average from $40 to $50 per acre and in many cases 

 selling for $100 per acre, the road to farm ownership for the poor man 

 is somewhat different. He must as a laborer have acquired money 

 enough to become a farm tenant and as a tenant have obtained sufficient 

 capital to make a reasonable payment on the purchase price of the 

 farm. This gradual rise of a farm laborer to farm ownership through 

 farm tenancy is being witnessed all over the States to which I have 

 referred. Mortgage assists, as on the frontier, in helping the men with 

 small capital to control farms worth more than their resources over 

 and above their liabilities. These men, rising in the older settled 

 States to farm ownership, through farm tenancy and by the aid of 

 mortgage loans, in a large measure succeed in paying off their debts as 

 does the settler on the frontier. With a large debt due on the more 

 valuable farms, it may require a longer time, but the end is reasonably 

 sure with those of any business sagacity. 



Another class of farm tenants in America is composed of the 

 children of the farm owners who cultivate their fathers' lands as 

 tenants until they succeed them as owners. No farm laborer who is 

 not a good farmer succeeds in rising, and the sons of wealthy land 

 owners, without good management, often lose all their inherited wealth. 

 Freedom to buy and sell and manage land kills off the incom- 

 petent, and gives the field to the competent, be he poor or 

 rich. This freedom of land sales prevents the tenant or owner 



